Link: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6531895.ece

This news is a lie

It's happened again. Another newspaper article of imaginary news from Japan. This time, its a report about the train cars in Japan.

As long as I've been here, there have been women only cars. These were created to give women a safe place to be, i.e. away from molesters. It hardly makes sense to us, but if a Japanese woman gets molested on a train, she probably wouldn't scream or fight or yell. She would just quietly take it. It's possible that the train car would be so stuffed she wouldn't have much of a choice. Either way, the woman only cars provide a safe zone, even though train molestations are few and far between.

Now, men want cars. This is a sort of knee jerk reaction to several cases of false accusations of molestation. After all, if you're crowded like sardines in a train car, it can be tough to know exactly whose hand is pinching your ass. So the men of Tokyo have called for a car of their own, one where they can be free from the threat of litigation.

The only problem is, its not news. I've showed this article to several of my adult students. One of whom is a man who rides this very train line EVERY DAY. Nobody has any idea what this newspaper is reporting on. There certainly hasn't been any news about men only cars in Tokyo.

Reader, if the mainstream media can be this inconsistent, this out of touch with reality about Japan... Imagine how easily they could get it wrong about the rest of the world.

If living in Japan for the past three years has taught me anything, its not to trust or put any faith in the mainstream news media.